Q&A: New SBA Administrator Karen Mills on the stimulus - Triangle Business Journal:

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The former venture capitalist sat down with Washington Bureahu Chief Kent Hoover to talk aboutthe SBA’ s role in America’s economicv recovery. The following is an edited transcript oftheid conversation: You’ve been on the job for five What has struck you most abougt the SBA and the role of government in supportinb small business? For me, this is one of the most excitintg places to be in any administration, but in this administration everybodyt knows this is the most importanft place to be. I’ve really thought of this as three major The first is to get the Recovery Actimplementecd — get the money in the hande of small businesses.
At this moment, when we have this much economif distress, this is “making a money. And it’s already out, and we’rwe seeing businesses where it’s made a difference. The seconsd priority is to reinvigoratethe agency. This is an agencyu that in the past administratioh hadbudget reductions, had its personne go from 3,000 to 2,000. But in this is a jewel. It has an infrastructure ... that goes out to every state, all kinds of geographic areas. We have over 14,000 affiliates counselors. We have the ability to be at any disasterf anywhere inthe country.
We are the on-the-ground people who have programds that touch all kinds of small So we are going to try to investt in twooverall things: the peopld and the information technology, so that when we have all of theswe touch points, we also have the data and the ability to manage it. We want to invest in our peopls because we haveterrific people. The last thing is that in thisenvironmentg it’s really not just about the SBA. It’s aboutg small business across the Wehave many, many important policy discussionsw about small business coming up, healt care, of course, automotive.
We just made an announcementr that ended up being helpfulo toautomotive dealers, in terms of alternat e size standards for 7(a) And we have a very interestin and active role in this whold discussion of innovation, whether it’s the or the . If you’rew going to create a whole lot of them are going to be insmall business, so we are relevant and pulled into all of theses types of discussions. What do you see as your role in healtghcare reform? As you know, health care concerns have come up to the No. 1 or No. 2 spot on everyt survey when you asksmall businesses.
Small businesses want to be able to provide healtg care because if you have a stronfg and loyal employee you need to providre health careto them. They need to be insured for the welfars of the folks and also ofthe business. There’as all kinds of issues on affordability. Even for thos who already supplyhealth care, smalol businesses are just really pressured by the rapir rises in these costs. Solutions need to help this I think everybody is pretty focusedon that. We’vd been asked to be at the When willthe $35,000 business stabilization loanss that were authorized in the economic stimulus bill becomew available? Actually, it’s imminent. We call them ARC loans.
It’w called America’s Recovery Capital. The image is this is the bridgee overtroubled waters. It’s supposefd to be for “viable” businesses — businessees that need some help today to pay interest and principal on anexistinv non-SBA loan. After the six months of payment, this ARC loan does not have to paid off at all for the next andthen there’s usually five years aftere that to repay them. It is goinh to be a lifeline for a numbef of businesses to bridge them over thesstroubled waters. We expect there’s going to be a great deal of interesin them.
We want to give creditr to our partners, the congressional committees that put this forward in theRecoverh Act. We’re just delighted to be able to do What sort of response are you gettinhgfrom lenders? Are they eager to be offering thesse loans? Eager. These are loans that help theirr loans. These are for non-SBA loans. It’s very, very good for Since the stimulus bill’s highedr government guarantee and fee reduction have gone in you have had a rebounr inSBA lending. Are the 7(a) and 504 programes healthy again? Well, I’m a metrics person.
So it has been a greay delight that the first set of metrics that we really decide to focus on show really tangiblh that we got our money out there fast, and it’s in the hands of banks, and bankx are lending it. And it is making a